1. Technical Field:
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and more particularly to an improved method and system for data manipulation. Still more particularly, the present invention provides an improved method and system for automatically creating logical connections between objects.
2. Description of the Related Art:
The manipulation of data in a data processing system is well known in the prior art. Data may be manipulated in many ways in a modern state-of-the-art data processing system including: data accessing, data encoding, data communications, data compression, data conversion, data entry, data exchange, data filing, data linking, data locking, data manipulation, data mapping, data modeling, data processing, data recording, data sorting, and data transferring. The large amounts of data that are available to the user of a modern state-of-the-art data processing system often become overwhelming in magnitude and complexity.
A graphic user interface (GUI) is often employed to manage and manipulate data. Often times, the manipulation of data involves logical operations. In a GUI, the manipulation of data may be accomplished via graphical objects having logical relationships between them to form a logical expression. The presently known methods and systems for creating logical relationships between graphical objects require a visible connection between the graphical objects. A logical editor is a type of graphical object editor that is typically employed in a GUI to create or compose logical expressions with graphic objects. Iconic representation of logical elements, also referred to as "nodes", may be placed on a work space within the logical editor by the user and connected by manipulating a mouse or keyboard input so that a desired logical function can be expressed by the user and performed by the data processing system. Existing logical editors require explicit connection of elements to allow interaction between the elements. These explicit connections are typically in the form of a line with an arrow at one end of the line to indicate the logic flow. These explicit connections require space in the work space of the logical editor. As the number of graphical objects increase, the work space in which the graphical objects are displayed becomes crowded and cluttered.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method and system for creating logical relationships between graphical objects to provide for efficient use of the work space.